Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Darling: I agree with my right hon. Friend that it is important that we do everything we can to support small and medium-sized businesses in this country. They employ more than half the work force and account for an important part of the economy. In addition to the EIB making £4 billion available to British banks, we want to ensure that the banks that have used the bank reconstruction fund make funds available at the equivalent of 2007 levels, and that they make that EIB money available. That does not mean that everyone who comes through the front door of a bank will get what they want, on the terms that they want, but it is important that British banks play their part. We, on behalf of the taxpayer, have put a lot of money into the banking system because we recognise its importance. In turn, banks have to recognise the importance, not just to the country but to banks, of ensuring that small and medium-sized enterprises get the support that they need.

Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend is right. I am aware of the concerns about people wanting more debt support and advice in our district, too, and it is the case right across the country. That is why we have substantially increased the investment in providing debt advice in the past 10 years. We are looking into what more we can do, because people need more support. My hon. Friend is also right to say that, at the heart of this, it would have been utterly irresponsible to cut the regulation of mortgage provision, as some in the Opposition seem to advocate.

Stephen Timms: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about the need to maintain our commitment to investment. We have put right a past policy of chronic under-investment in housing and in other public services. We now need to maintain our commitment to invest in public services, especially housing.

Harriet Harman: The business for next week will be as follows:
	Monday 3 November—Remaining stages of the Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [ Lords].
	Tuesday 4 November—Remaining stages of the Employment Bill [ Lords].
	Wednesday 5 November—General debate on work and welfare.
	Thursday 6 November—Topical debate: subject to be announced, followed by general debate on public engagement in fighting crime.
	The provisional business for the week commencing 10 November will include:
	Monday 10 November—Opposition day [20th Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on a Liberal Democrat motion. Subject to announced.
	Tuesday 11 November—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by general debate: subject to be announced.
	Wednesday 12 November—Motions relating to House of Commons business.
	Thursday 13 November—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by general debate: subject to be announced.
	I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 13 November will be:
	Thursday 13 November—A debate on the report from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on harmful content on the internet and in video games.

Harriet Harman: I thank the hon. Lady, who is among the one in 10 to whom I referred, for making that point. Obviously, the issue of the housing market and house building is of concern. It was raised in questions to the Department for Communities and Local Government and in Treasury questions, and it was raised with the Prime Minister. We firmly believe that it is an issue on which the Government should act and that there should not be a laissez-faire attitude in the market. Public investment and public regulation of the mortgage markets have a role to play. Hopefully, the Conservatives will support us as we try to make progress on the issue.

Harriet Harman: The hon. Lady makes a serious point. This subject was raised immediately preceding business questions in Treasury questions, when one of the Treasury Ministers said that they understand the concerns and are looking into them. I refer her to that earlier exchange in the House.

Patrick McFadden: I believe that all of the Ministers of the regions are doing a good job in working with business, and I include the Minister for the East of England.
	It is now a decade since the Government created the regional development agencies, though I note that the Opposition voted against the Bill that created them. Those organisations, together with business, local authorities and other local partners, have played an important role in fostering economic development in their areas, be it the new media city in Salford, the North East Productivity Alliance aimed at lean manufacturing, or the east midlands redevelopment to create the UK's largest bioscience and innovation centre. Wherever we go, we can see value-added examples in which those organisations have been important partners.

Alison Seabeck: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for drawing attention to the role of the regional development agencies. He will be aware that marine skills and sciences are important to the south-west, particularly to Plymouth—there is a lot of international expertise. The RDA has been investing heavily in that area and supporting apprenticeships, which are important to small and medium-sized enterprises, of which there are many in the south-west, feeding into that industry. Will my hon. Friend give a commitment to ensure that there is ongoing investment into RDAs to support apprenticeships in the south-west?

Patrick McFadden: That is a good point. I highlighted some examples of ongoing regional development around the country. At times of crisis and economic shocks, RDAs have played an important role. For example, during last year's floods, RDAs were able to get short-term help to businesses quickly and effectively. The example that my hon. Friend gave is absolutely right. In the west midlands, following the collapse of MG Rover, the RDA played a critical role in supporting businesses in the supply chain and in co-ordinating the retraining of the more than 6,000 workers affected. The result, not just of the RDAs' efforts, but of those of all concerned, was that by late 2006 fewer than 500 of the original 6,000-plus workers were still seeking alternative work.
	In the current circumstances, RDAs play an important role in working with businesses through their own initiatives, and they have already worked with businesses and local authorities to create a more user-friendly system of business support. In the past, too many of those schemes grew up, however well intended they were. Last week, my noble Friend the Secretary of State announced that they would be slimmed down to 30 advice, grant and loan products, which collectively will deliver some £1.4 billion in support to businesses. In individual regions, help is being provided to businesses in the current environment—for example, One NorthEast's efforts to match jobseekers with vacancies in the area or, in the south-east, the development agency's efforts to help businesses reduce the cost of their energy needs.
	Last week, when I said that the Opposition had placed a question mark over the future of the RDAs, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton said it was not so, but I have checked the statements of Opposition Members on that issue. The Leader of the Opposition said, just a couple of months ago:
	"let's abolish things like the regional assemblies and the West Midlands Regional Development Agency."
	He went on to say:
	"I think the entire experiment with regional government, with regional assemblies, with many of the regional development agencies, I think that has been a complete waste and that should go."
	When asked about restructuring regional quangos, the Conservative local government spokesman, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles), said:
	"you could only possibly say we were looking towards restructuring them if you felt that Ann Boleyn received a restructuring from the guillotine. So in that sense there is going to be a sort of divvying up of the corpse".
	It is quite clear that the Opposition have placed at least a question mark—and that is putting it politely—over the future of RDAs.

Mark Prisk: The debate comes, as the Minister suggested, at a time of great financial uncertainty. Businesses throughout the UK face falling demand, rising bills and—as was mentioned with regard to the banks—a squeeze on their finances. Throughout the country, businesses fear that the boom of the past 16 years is turning quickly to bust. The Prime Minister may be in denial, but many of our constituents do not have that option. They face potential redundancy, and the businesses that they have built up over many years face closure. That is why I believe that the Government should scrap their planned tax rises for small companies. What, for example, is the economic logic of increasing small company corporation tax by £370 million in this of all years? As business owners in Cornwall said to me recently, they need a tax rise like they need a hole in the head.
	We need further action. The Government should cut payroll taxes for the smallest employers to help them save money and thus keep jobs. Conservative Members want to help more small firms claim business rates relief. The Local Government Association reckons that, across England, only half the eligible firms benefit from the relief, despite its being worth up to £1,100 per annum. More needs to be done to help eligible firms claim that money, and I am pleased to say that my party is leading the way.
	May I bring to the Minister's attention the concern about Government contracts that was raised with me when I met businesses in Birmingham last month? As he said, we have some excellent high value manufacturers and service firms in the midlands. Yet some of the newer small businesses told me that they feel excluded from doing business with the Government because of the red tape around state procurement. The Government are the biggest purchaser of goods and services, spending roughly £125 billion this year alone.
	What needs to change? First, the Government should scrap the rule that requires three years of audited accounts before firms can even be considered for bidding. Secondly, small firms in more remote locations need to be able to access contracts online more routinely than they can at the moment. Some contracts are online, but such a service is far from comprehensive. I have rural enterprises in east Hertfordshire, and their ability to keep track of Government contracts is limited, partly because of their location. Many Members will find that that applies to businesses in their constituencies if they are located away from major urban centres. To help them, all state contracts worth more than £10,000 should be published online as a matter of course, not on the current ad hoc basis.
	Thirdly, there should be a single pre-qualification questionnaire for Government contracts that are worth less than £50,000. If a firm pre-qualifies for one Department, what is the logic behind making it go back to the beginning and reapply to another Department, given that it was clearly eligible for one Department? Taken together, those reasonably small steps could make a big difference to many businesses in my constituency and, indeed, in every region.

Mark Prisk: If the Minister is going to promise that he will provide that voice and remove such competition, I should be happy to give way.

David Kidney: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk), who was unfortunately unable to attend the meeting last night in Committee Room 10, which was organised by the Industry and Parliament Trust. Parliamentarians had a good discussion with representatives, owners and managers of and professional advisers to small businesses throughout the country.
	The event was very useful and showed that the small business sector is in a healthy position, representing as it does 99 per cent. by number of the enterprises in this country—about half our enterprise employment and more than one third of the total earnings of the sector. People said last night that they felt they were entering this difficult time in a much better position than in 1990, when they were net borrowers. Now they are net depositors. Now they feel better managed and are more flexible and ready to respond to the situation.
	Partly as a result of last night, I want to dwell on two things. One is the big picture of British enterprise in a global economy. The other is the more immediate issue of access to funds, especially when credit and funding have all but dried up. I want to start with British business's global position by saying. "Let's hear it for the entrepreneurial spirit in this country. Let's hear it for the businesses and entrepreneurs who battle and who, with the right support, can carry the world with them, however global the markets in which they operate are."
	The people attending last night's event were up for the struggle ahead and for seeing our way through to calmer waters, when the current difficulties will be over. We ought to respect the position of people who are willing to put their all into making this country a great place to do business and a great success in world markets. As policymakers and those who make decisions that affect their world, what do we need to do to make them competitive in a global economy? For us, this means being globally competitive in the areas that affect businesses, including regulation, taxation levels and, in better times, access to funding. This country ought to be well placed in respect of those factors. The Hampton review set us on the road towards world-class, risk-based, proportionate regulation. I might offer a word of caution, however, in that, as a result of what has happened to the banks and financial institutions recently, the appetite for deregulation and light-touch regulation has changed. It will be a challenge for us, as law makers and rule makers, when we come out on the other side of the present crisis, to resist the calls for heavier regulation, and to stay true to the Hampton review agenda of risk-based, proportionate regulation. Of course, the definition of "proportionate" might be different after the experiences that we are all feeling so keenly and deeply at this time.
	I should like to make a further point about regulation, although it admittedly relates more to the time when we come out of the present difficulty than to the present circumstances. Since 1994, we in this place have tried three times to set up a legislative fast track for getting rid of regulations that we accept are more burdensome than beneficial to British businesses. The first two attempts were well intentioned, but resulted in hardly any noticeable change. Last year, we made a further attempt, and we now have a Regulatory Reform Committee. The challenge for us, and for the business representatives and businesses that I mentioned earlier, is to work out a programme for sweeping away the regulations that we agree are too burdensome and provide too little benefit. We need to make use of the system that we in this House and the other place have established for fast-tracking the removal of those regulations from our system.

David Kidney: I am quite proud of some of the reliefs and allowances that we have introduced since 1997. Reliefs on capital expenditure on equipment, and research and development tax credits, are positive things that we should not lose. I can understand why my hon. Friend makes that point.
	I should like to make a general point about JCB, which also applies to other employers. By making such a decision to keep together its skilled work force, the company is maximising its ability to respond when the upturn inevitably comes. It still has its skilled work force ready, rather than letting them go, which could result in their skills degrading or their getting other jobs and being unavailable to a world-class company such as JCB when the upturn comes. JCB is a creditable example of the British enterprise spirit, with its skilled work force and its trade union acting as a social partner in the workplace.
	I turn now to the issue of access to funding and credit. Inevitably, instead of being part of a general discussion, this is now the No. 1 issue for everyone, because of the problems that we are all facing. The top issue for businesses in my constituency is their cash flow. It has always been important, but it is now critical. At the top of the list of problems is late payment. Businesses strongly believe that it is up to other businesses, like them, to pay their bills on time. They are also worried about the stories emerging of big players—the larger companies—slowing down their payments to others in the supply chain in order to protect their own financial position. They want to hear us say that that is unacceptable, and that organisations large and small should pay their bills on time. I am certainly happy to send that message clearly.
	As a result of those problems, an old chestnut has re-emerged: the speed with which banks clear cheques and other payments into people's accounts. When people see countries such as Sweden clearing payments within 24 hours, they cannot understand why their bank is still telling them to wait for up to five days. Over the years that I have been an MP, I feel that we have been strung along by the banks. They have always said that, tomorrow, with the right technology, they will be able to whiz these payments into people's accounts. However, I am still hearing that that is not happening. This is something that the banks could quickly get on top of and do something about. Now that the Government are a shareholder in several of our banks, I hope that our representatives on their boards will raise that issue at meetings, so that the banks in which we have a say can start clearing cheques into people's accounts as quickly as they can. I should like to see the corporate giants of our economy, which pride themselves on their social responsibility, making a point of paying their bills quickly and on time, and doing so in a visible manner. That would set an example to others.
	The Government are also an important buyer of goods, services and major contracts. They therefore have many bills to pay. It is pleasing to hear them say that they are committing themselves to paying those bills as quickly as possible and, in any event, within 10 days. I want the Minister to say that we can have regular updates to show that that is happening. In good years, we have accounts from Departments about their performance, and it is fair to say that even with a target of 30 days, they have not always shone with 100 per cent. success in meeting that deadline. In such times, it is crucial that we, the scrutinisers of Government, have the necessary information.
	The Government are an important part of the public sector, but there is a big public sector beyond them, and it is important that we urge everyone to adopt the same responsible approach of paying bills as quickly as possible. One thing that we can do as individual Members of Parliament is to chase up the public sector organisations in our constituencies and urge them to pay their bills quickly. I have written to the health trusts, the primary care trust and so on in my constituency to urge them to pay their bills as quickly as possible.
	When there are such pressures on access to credit and funding, people are concerned about the apparent drying up of access to funds at banks and banks unilaterally changing conditions of trade with their business customers. People have told us about loans that they thought would be rolled over but will now not be, or of loans that will be rolled over but on higher interest rates. As legislators, we should look at the terms that banks are going to use to do business with small and medium-sized enterprises from now on. The investment that we have made in some banks from public funds means that we should have a say in their performance. At Question Time today, some of us asked the Chancellor and his team about the promise that the banks which have been recapitalised using public funds will keep their lending at 2007 levels. We need to understand what that means for businesses.
	I can understand issuing a caution about not wanting to repeat the mistakes of the past and have irresponsible lending—the idea that asking banks to hit a target could lead to pressure to make the same mistakes—but lending to businesses has nearly always been responsible in this country. There is no reason to think that there should be any falling off in levels of lending to companies as long as businesses and banks continue the relationship that they had.
	On a final point about access to funding, and one that is beyond the Government, we heard an exchange between the Front-Bench spokesmen about making money from the European Investment Bank accessible to businesses as quickly as possible. I join the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford in urging that we act quickly on that. To reprise the point that I made to the Minister about Advantage West Midlands, there was a huge shock to manufacturing in the region when MG Rover collapsed in 2001. There was a great deal of worry about the supply chain, which was extensive throughout the region, and about huge job losses as a consequence. Advantage West Midlands responsibly stepped up to the plate and made transitional loans available for businesses that were trying to find work to replace what they had lost with the collapse of MG Rover. As a result of that scheme, there were far fewer job losses than any of us had feared would be the case. The scheme was wound up when it had done its job, but because of the current situation, its time has come again. In fact, I can think of an individual case in my constituency which would benefit now, today, from access to similar funding. I certainly urge the Minister to make moves to see whether such money could be made available in the west midlands and across the country.
	The public sector as a whole is a huge procurer of services and should not drop its guard when it offers contracts to businesses in this country. I recently chaired an inquiry that produced the report "Sustainable Procurement". Despite its title, it is not a green document, but is about the sustainability—economical, environmental and social—of the procurement power of the public sector. I recommend it to the Minister. It includes pointers that would help British businesses to secure British contracts.
	There is such pressure on businesses that, inevitably, they will look at their skills training budget and ask whether it should be cut in these times of difficulty. That would be a dangerous thing to do and I urge them not to cut back on training now, because in the longer term, when the upturn comes and we need the skills of a better trained work force, they will miss not having made that investment. I hope that they will see the sense in maintaining their skills investment.

John Thurso: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) who, as usual, spoke with great common sense. I am tempted to follow him down the route of discussing health and safety regulation, because it is important, but I do not think that the time allowed permits me to do so. I shall therefore follow the major thrust of the end of his speech on the availability of finance, which is the critical issue for all businesses throughout all the regions and nations of the United Kingdom.
	First, however, I want to comment on the discussion about inward investment and the regional development agencies, and point to the nations as opposed to the regions. Scotland has one body responsible for inward investment, and it operates reasonably well. However, those of us in the more outlying areas find it useful to have our own personnel to go abroad and win business. Thurso is not, perhaps, the first port of call for a Japanese battery manufacturer, but we were successful in winning that business, and an important part of our local business it is. Perhaps that is a lesson for the RDAs.
	I have no doubt that when the figures are published early next year, we will find that we are currently in recession. The only questions are how savage it will be and how long. As in any recession, the core question that every business is asking is how to maintain its cash flow and how to survive. In past recessions, frankly, if we are honest, the policy levers available for helping businesses at any level were, to an extent, curtailed, because what was really needed was to get the economy going again. However, one lever is available in this recession that has not been available before. Owing to the financial crisis and the fact that the Government are now owners of some banks and substantial shareholders in others, they have an ability to affect the outcome of how those banks deal with businesses.
	We have heard in debates on business over the past week of banks increasing interest rates, increasing fees and curtailing facilities. I have recently had some concrete examples of where loan-to-value covenants have been breached. The bank has called in the facility on the basis of that breach, there has been a requirement to charge more interest, which in turn has breached the interest covenant, and the company is threatened with going into receivership, notwithstanding the fact that it is fully profitable and can carry on. Obviously, I could give details of the company involved, but the point is that sound companies are threatened with being put into administration.
	Today, I understand that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord Mandelson, the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, are meeting the chiefs of the banks. I again ask the Government to consider having a proper and spelt out memorandum of understanding, clearly stating not the detail of one particular loan, but how in principle the banks are going to deal with companies. I suggest that that simple memorandum of understanding would cover several things. The first is the ability of banks to withdraw overdraft facilities on demand. They should agree to a 28-day period from notification to when they would put it into effect. The second concerns covenants on capital values and interest to cover the point that I have just made. The third is to agree not to increase the current interest margins and fee charges that sound companies are paying. Another is to cover the point that the Chancellor made in an article that I read this morning, which says that he
	"has promised to step in if banks were found to be 'recklessly withholding money'".
	Clearly there must be a way that the problem can be dealt with before the company has gone under, and that needs to be spelt out as well.
	I suggest to the Minister that one of the main things that we need is clarification from the Chancellor and Lord Mandelson about precisely what is meant. At present there is merely an open aspiration that credit will be available at 2007 levels, and until clear principles are established demonstrating what that means to businesses, it will not be a great deal of help to them. While I accept that summits, forums and meetings are of some use to businesses, what is really required from the Government at this time is leadership and clear direction, and that means setting out the principles on which the banks will operate over the next two years.

Anne Main: I agree with some of what has just been said by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). I recently asked my local chamber of commerce what challenges faced businesses in St. Albans. It listed a wide range of problems, but most of them involved cash flow. Banks in my constituency are aware of the problems facing businesses, but there is a domino effect: when Peter does not pay Paul, no one can pay anyone. That is a big problem, and it will become no easier as time goes by. If other Members have not asked their local chambers of commerce the same question, I can tell them that there is a lot of hurt out there, and people in my constituency are certainly letting me know about it.
	I listened with interest to the Minister's praise for regional development agencies, but let me redress the balance somewhat by drawing attention to the concerns that exist. It is true that the RDAs' statutory purposes are, among other things, to
	"further economic development and regeneration"
	and
	"to promote business efficiency, investment and competitiveness".
	However, in evidence given to the Select Committee on Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform in October, the Institute of Directors expressed the rather different view that
	"with the exception of the Regional Economic Strategy, this work"
	—the work done by the RDAs—
	"could have been done just as well by a properly staffed Government Office. From the viewpoint of business in the broader sense of the word, the benefit of the RDAs has been their business focus. Unfortunately as the years have gone by, that focus has diminished in the Region".
	That strikes me as quite a worrying comment.
	The RDAs have proved somewhat controversial and somewhat political, and the criticism has often been made that they are spreading themselves far too thinly without making a concentrated effort to tackle underlying problems. Let me say to the Minister again—and I will continue to say it—that the fact that funds that were to be directed towards business via the RDAs have been pinched to prop up the housing market is yet another problem. There will now be even less money for the RDAs to divert to small businesses, especially in my area, which makes me question whether there is any point to RDAs in general.
	The RDAs have also been accused of being too political, not just by the Conservatives but by business representatives. In its evidence to the Select Committee, the Institute of Directors also said that Government were
	"making the roles of the RDAs less business orientated, and more overtly political".
	There are concerns about the operation of the RDAs and about their ever-escalating budget, which has increased steadily since their creation. It stood at £2.44 billion in 2008, but that amount was not divided equally among the regions. Although the east of England is seen as a cash cow by the Government, my area received only £159 million worth of the pie.
	It could be asked why the Government have chosen to put the money where they are putting it. There are more small business start-ups in the east of England than anywhere else, and we are seen to be giving a huge amount to the Chancellor, which he redistributes to—I would say—his friends elsewhere; yet we receive very small amounts of the budget. That too causes me to question the role of the RDAs. The position seems bizarre to me, and, as I have said, I keep asking the same question.
	I have been told that the decision to take money from the east of England was painful and reluctant, but I do not think that the Minister has addressed it at all. We receive less than any other region, but £300 million has been taken from the RDAs' budget, and some of that is coming from the east of England. If the decision was indeed painful and reluctant, and if it was made in the knowledge that it would be an issue, may I ask what evaluation was made of the impact on businesses? I should really like an answer to that. It is particularly worrying that we are still feeding the delivery system although our budget has been taken away.
	As I said at the outset, businesses in my constituency are hurting. There are huge worries about the economy, and about how the area will fare. We are seen as being wealthy in St. Albans. While I dispute that—there are multiple poverty indices in parts of the area—it must also be said that we are not doing too badly. However, a recent survey by Oxford Economics, the commercial wing of Oxford university, placed St. Albans 16th out of 408 areas in the United Kingdom in terms of how badly it would fare as a result of the possible impact of the credit crunch. If the fact that we are the 16th most vulnerable area in the UK does not worry the Minister and other Government officials who tell us that we are wealthy, it ought to.
	We may be wealthy according to certain indicators, but we are also vulnerable when things start going wrong. Our area is very exposed, and particularly vulnerable in an economic downturn. The average credit card debt among St. Albans residents is £1,871, which makes us, in terms of credit cards, the fourth most indebted area in the country as well as the 16th most vulnerable to a credit crunch.
	I believe that we need a better form of delivery, enabling investment to go directly to the people who need it most. I was amazed to learn that—as my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) mentioned earlier—the RDAs have cost the taxpayer £13 billion: £600 for every household. We must ask ourselves whether this is the best way of delivering money, not only to small businesses but to local people who are struggling economically. I would happily scrap these bloated quangos. I do not believe that we need a regional solution to local problems. That is not to say that there is no role for regions, but all too often we look to people in a distant place to deliver local solutions, and the businesses in my area feel that they do not always get it right.
	If we are going to spend so much money on a delivery body, let us make sure that we do get it right. If we believe that this is the right way in which to do things, let us not rob the pot when it is convenient. Surely the money that has been spent in this way could be better spent on reducing small businesses' national insurance contributions, cutting small-company corporation tax, and tackling all the red tape and bureaucracy to which other Members have referred and which is tying my small businesses in knots.

John Hutton: I beg to move
	That this House has considered the matter of defence policy.
	It is a great privilege for me to be able to open today's debate on defence policy, and I am very much looking forward to the contributions of all right hon. and hon. Members. There is a depth of experience in this Chamber on which I would like to be able to draw in the weeks and months ahead. We all know that our country and its armed forces face real and obvious dangers. I hope that we can all work together to help to overcome them and to show our support for and pride in the men and women who serve our country so well.
	May I also begin by paying tribute to my immediate predecessor? My right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Des Browne) was a distinguished Secretary of State. In my first week as Defence Secretary, I attended a meeting of NATO Defence Ministers in Budapest. I can pass on to my right hon. Friend that, as I was being introduced to colleagues from different member states, every one of my counterparts spoke of him with genuine warmth and respect, and rightly so. Those comments are a testament to his integrity, dignity and intellect, and I should like to pay my own personal tribute to the leadership that he gave to the MOD over recent years.
	At the outset of my first defence debate, I would like to remember the men and women who have been killed or injured serving their country. My thoughts and prayers are with their families, friends and colleagues. The individual sacrifices of this generation stand comparison with those of any other in our nation's history. We must never allow their service and sacrifice to be forgotten, because we owe them so much.
	I welcome this debate on defence policy. The primary purpose of our defence policy is to protect and enhance the security of our people. That is why we currently have 8,000 troops serving in Afghanistan and more than 4,000 troops in southern Iraq. It is also why we are investing more than £6 billion this year in new capabilities to serve the needs of our armed forces now and in the future.
	The nature of conflict has changed throughout the 20th century. Thankfully, large-scale inter-state warfare is today less likely than it has been for some considerable time. Although we must always have the capability to defend ourselves, if necessary by ourselves, today our security will more often than not be aligned with that of our allies.
	Over the past few years, Her Majesty's Government have set out the modern nature of the global context in which we now operate. In the strategic defence review of 1998 and its new chapter in 2002, and more recently in the national security strategy, we have sought to identify the nature of the modern threats we now face: terrorism, failing states, weapons proliferation and energy insecurity. The UK's defence policies contribute towards three overarching strategic objectives: to achieve success on operations; to be ready to respond to tasks that might arise; and to build for the future. I would like to say a few words about each of these objectives.

Liam Fox: Indeed, I just said that there was a lack of political will even to use the assets when they are available. Those serving in the armed forces of other countries joined their armed forces to be a part of a defensive fighting force, if necessary, and I think that they find it just as frustrating as we do to be tied with red tape, caveats and restrictions by their respective Governments. I hope that the debate in those countries will be a vigorous one.
	What should the roles of NATO and the EU be, in that case? If the EU is to have a constructive role, it needs to do what NATO cannot or does not do. The Opposition have always been happy with the EU acting as a delivery mechanism of NATO policy, especially in areas such as security sector reform, the rule of law missions and so on—areas where NATO has never been very well configured. There is certainly room for greater bilateral co-operation.
	I echo what the Secretary of State said about what is happening in France. I know that many people are sceptical about the motives of President Sarkozy, but we need to recognise that we must seize the moment. We have been encouraging France for a long time to return to the integrated command structure, to have a rapprochement with the US and to become much more involved in future planning. If we now say, "Well, it's not real," we are in danger of failing to recognise that this is a potentially important time. We need to welcome the move, because if the moment is lost it might be some time before it comes back. Proof of that fact, it proof were required, can be found in the French defence White Paper, which saw a fundamental reshaping of French forces along lines much closer to the sort of expeditionary capability that we have long encouraged them to try to have.
	There are positive developments along those lines. But—there has to be a "but"—a greater role for the EU in soft power cannot be used as an excuse to avoid basic NATO military obligations. Frankly, the duplication of NATO structures—double-hatting—does not improve increased capability. Action needs assets and we cannot have competition for scarce resources. In the US in particular, we hear politicians saying that Europe must do more for its own defence and for the defence of the alliance. I think that most of us would echo that. It cannot just be a short-term pragmatic approach; the structural relationship between NATO and the EU needs to be properly thought out.
	Let me give a single example. Piracy is a major scourge of our sea lanes. Combined Task Force 150, which is part of Operation Enduring Freedom, is off the horn of Africa with 14 or 15 ships. It is working under the US fifth fleet. NATO is there with Standing NATO Maritime Group 2; that is another seven ships or so. Now we are to have an EU mission. Why? Other than flying the EU flag, what can that achieve that we could not achieve by augmenting one of the two existing missions? What will the command relationship be? Who is in charge of the area of operations? When we asked those questions, we were told that there would be close co-operation, but that is not really a sufficient answer. We need to know why the EU felt it necessary to become involved in something that was already being done by United States and NATO missions. We are not getting particularly good answers.

Tobias Ellwood: My hon. Friend is making a very important point. There are two military missions in Darfur: an EU military mission and, just down the road from it, a NATO mission. Both have about a dozen British soldiers. It can be very confusing for those in uniform to understand exactly who they are supposed to be working for, and who is involved in the operations with them. That was emphasised in Bosnia. When I was serving there, we were delighted to get rid of our UN uniform and go back to NAT: we firmly understood where we were and who the orders came from.

Madam Deputy Speaker: May I remind all hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a 12-minute limit on Back-Bench contributions?

Robert Key: I am delighted to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), who has made the most remarkable speech that I have heard in a defence debate for a long time. I would only add that I, too, believe passionately that we should reconnect with our constituents to point out to them that even in these straitened times we need to recognise that our future prosperity, our standard of living and our quality of life all depend on recognising what our freedom stands for. If we are to continue to trade globally with the rest of the world, to import and export goods and services, and to do more than 90 per cent. of it by sea and only a tiny minority by air, we must, as a matter of necessity, still be able to project force around the globe.
	We have reached a crossroads, as my right hon. Friend pointed out. We will either be a global force to be reckoned with, or we will not. If we are not, we will fall back on a group of countries that currently call themselves members of NATO, or perhaps on another relationship within the European Union. We cannot have it both ways: either we address the issue of the proportion of our national spending that goes on defence, and increase it—I would like to double it, as I have been saying for many years, to the distress of my party and the disbelief of the Labour party—or we will have to sit back and decline gently over the coming generations.
	I believe passionately, however, that we do not really have a choice, because our people demand that their standard of living does not decline. Nor are they willing to see their ideas of what Britain is all about written off. Therefore, as my right hon. Friend so vividly explained, we must give them a vision and a far clearer explanation of what we are doing about defence in the world. We also have to explain that the goods and services that they buy in the shops depend, ultimately, on the freedom to trade globally, on keeping the sea lanes open, and on keeping the security of our shores under constant surveillance, using technology that they are not used to and cannot really understand. How many of our constituents are distressed by what they perceive as the decline of what used to be called Customs and Excise, now Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs? They say, "There aren't any Customs cutters floating around our shores any more." That is history; we now do things differently, and I have to accept that.
	People are increasingly concerned about the way in which our defence policy, as applied to our personnel, does not provide the services that our constituents expect. The remarkable reaction right across the United Kingdom to Help for Heroes has made us all sit up and wonder why that extraordinary organisation, which I am proud to say originates from my constituency, has caught the imagination of the British people. It is because the British people have suddenly woken up, and say, "Well, we may not understand what the armed forces are doing, and we don't like seeing on our television screens what they're doing, and what is being done to them in Afghanistan, Iraq or many other parts of the world"—there are, in fact, some 4,000 different units of the British military all around the world—"but we recognise that when they come home, they should expect and receive better."
	That is why I am particularly anxious about how we treat returning service personnel, medically and mentally. I salute the progress that the Ministry of Defence has made in addressing those issues. The Defence Committee produced a report earlier this year on how we look after our service personnel and their families, medically. However, we need to go further. We have, of course, visited Headley Court and Combat Stress to see what they do, but there is something else that we need to do: we need to encourage Ministers to provide all the necessary resources, for example to the King's Centre for Military Health Research, of King's college, London. It does incredibly good work, which it has been publishing since 2006. However, it still has a long way to go.
	There is a remarkable project, which I hope Ministers will continue to support, called the trauma risk management, or TRiM, project for post-conflict trauma, depression and stress training. The system operates as a proactive peer group and mentoring and support system that helps people to identify when those in the services are at risk, and the symptoms that they should recognise. The allocated budget for all stress management training within all the armed forces stands at about £1 million a year, which is not nearly enough. It is easy for me to say that we must spend more, but this is a very important matter, and in view of the anxiety about it, expressed only today in the national press, I hope that Ministers will consider what should be done.
	Another issue that we should take as part and parcel of the question of trying to ensure that the public understand more about what it means to serve in Her Majesty's forces is how we treat them with regard to their right to vote. For many years we have been saying that Her Majesty's forces do not have as high a level of voter registration as we think they should, and this month the Electoral Commission has described the way in which our forces are under-registered. It points out that only about two thirds of Her Majesty's forces are registered to vote, and it is running campaigns, which I welcome. I hope that Ministers will be encouraged to work ever more closely with the Electoral Commission to ensure that in the annual campaign that is beginning this month, through unit registration officers and Ministry of Defence publicity, no effort is spared to ensure that our service voters have the service that they deserve. It is also important to recognise that registering as an overseas voter is not always the answer. Rather the answer for all service personnel is to register as service voters because they need register only every three years instead of every year.

Linda Gilroy: It is only three weeks since our last defence debate, during which the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), said that there was no equivocation about the Government's commitment to Devonport. I make no apology for beginning with some local issues, although I want to take up some of the points made by the two previous speakers, with whom I have the honour of serving on the Defence Committee.
	I suspect that in the coming weeks redundancies at Devonport Royal Dockyard will be announced. The redundancies have been spoken of for about three years. Given that the 24/7 media tend to accentuate every story by repeating it almost every quarter of an hour, sometimes for several days, the fact that the redundancies have been expected for such a long time has tended to make it sound as if they are happening over and again. Nevertheless, when they come they will, of course, be a source of deep regret and play into the ongoing concerns of my constituents.
	Earlier this afternoon, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck) and I discussed the death by a thousand cuts of Devonport naval base and dockyard with the regional Minister.  [Interruption.] I see my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces sitting, as always, with great patience as he hears that such stories are ongoing. We know that Bulwark, Albion and Westminster will keep our workers in the dockyard busy for several years and that there was a huge £150 million investment to enable the important Astute submarine maintenance work in Devonport to continue.
	There are, of course, peaks in the sort of work that is undertaken at our dockyard, and they are associated with the intense work on the submarines. Obviously, those peaks occur alongside the troughs in between. Filling those troughs is very important to the people who earn their living through this work. In recent weeks, Babcock Marine decided that it would no longer continue with work on some prestigious luxury boats that had been part of the in-fill work that kept the expert skills of the people who work on the submarines honed.
	Yesterday, following my question at Prime Minister's Question Time, I was pleased to hear the announcement about the £700-million vehicles programme, part of which will be for further purchases of the Jackal vehicle—a great success story that we have talked about in previous debates. The programme will not automatically come to Devonport, but I cannot imagine that anywhere else is as well positioned to compete for it. When we met my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces a few months ago, he assured us that he would press to obtain the clarity to which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred when he said that he hoped soon to make some important procurement announcements.
	There is often confusion between the roles of Devonport dockyard and the naval base. Of course, the prospects of both are closely tied together. Last week, I was pleased to be able to attend, as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, the staff course at Shrivenham defence academy, where for three days we discussed maritime policy and doctrine alongside officers who are on a year-long course preparatory to taking on their first command posts. That helped me to get a deeper and broader picture of the range of tasks and the flexibility of the role of the Royal Navy, and the centrality of amphibious warfare, for which we hope to become the centre of excellence in Devonport.
	The right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), who chairs the Defence Committee, referred to a crisis of understanding. One of the things that I gained a deeper understanding of was exactly what people mean when they refer to sea blindness and maritime blindness. That operates on several levels, one of which relates to the general public.
	When our deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq are shown on television, they appear broadly to be land deployments to which the Navy is not at all central, so it ends up being sidelined. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that puts at risk its interests in relation to all the tensions involved in the defence budget. In Defence questions on Monday, I requested information about the number of Royal Navy personnel who are currently deployed in Afghanistan. The answer will probably come as quite a surprise.
	In the battle of arguments between land, air and sea forces for different procurement programmes, the Royal Navy is put in a peculiar position whereby the centrality of its role in our joint expeditionary force capabilities becomes lost. My experience last week suggests that all the platforms together, including the carriers and the amphibious vessels, are there to project, support and protect our armed forces—there could be nothing more central to what we need to do to meet the risks of today and tomorrow.
	Various hon. Members referred to the future carrier, which will enhance that amphibious capability to project, support and protect as a central plank of the expeditionary force that we need to deal with uncertain future threats. Some have argued that we need a White Paper to bring all this together. In addition to the fact that that would delay things, which would be dangerous, I understand that the basic assumptions underpinning the last White Paper—the strategic defence review—have been reviewed and found to hold true. There is a case to clarify and update what the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire referred to as a crisis of understanding. I hope that some means of drawing on recent important studies can be found.
	I want to mention two further issues. First, I acknowledge the work in the report of the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), on national recognition, and the Government response, which, among other things, confirms that we will have the first British armed forces and veterans day on 27 June next year. Work is ongoing to ensure that the day is in tune with national sentiment and to ensure that the scale and nature of the event do not unduly burden the armed forces, which is an important consideration.
	Secondly, I particularly welcome the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham, who this morning welcomed two remarkable veterans—two of the 50 veterans who have had life-size portraits painted by local artist Peter Blackler, telling the story from the first world war to the most recent deployments. I hope that a role can be found for that sort of project. I welcome the fact that prints of the two portraits are to be hung in the Ministry of Defence. Such projects, especially when they involve young people, are an important part of how we help our communities that are less familiar with the armed services than those represented by most of us here today to understand the role of yesterday's and today's armed forces, and the needs of veterans of more recent deployments.
	I conclude with an issue arising from the Government's response to the recent report of the Defence Committee on recruitment and retention. I was particularly disappointed by the Government's response to our recommendation that they should, as soon as possible, carefully consider dealing with the differing retirement ages in the armed services, which has a particular effect on the senior ranks. Because people must have two years' remaining service in order be able to apply for some positions, those who have an earlier retirement date—mostly Marines, some of whom have the most important experience from recent deployment—cannot apply for posts that are open to all services. That cannot be right. It is not sensible to deny individuals that opportunity, and it is not sensible for the MOD not to have the benefit of those senior officers' experience.

Ann Winterton: I too shall try to be brief, because I know that so many others wish to contribute to this reasonably wide-ranging defence debate.
	In spite of the current economic difficulties, now is not the time to cut the military budget, especially when times are so uncertain and when the very stability of nations and the civilised western world is being called into question. With the recession and so much of the budget already committed for future military projects, even if we take into account yesterday's very welcome news of the £700 million protected mobility project, my biggest fear is that the Army will lose out. Yet the Army is the very service with the hard-won experience and expertise that the UK needs most, if we bear in mind the commitments that the Government have made in committing our forces to two war zones.
	I regret that I was unable to be present yesterday to listen to—or, even better, to contribute to—the debate in Westminster Hall on "Government strategy and objectives in Afghanistan". Having read  Hansard this morning, I support the contribution made to that debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood), who has first-hand experience of the problems faced there. I have made the point before that I do not believe that we will succeed in Afghanistan while security, reconstruction and development fall under two commands. The whole project should be under one command, preferably that of the Army, for success to be achieved. If the objective is not achieved, the overstretched and under-resourced military will be placed in an impossible position, with, I regret to say, further loss of life.
	I have always given credit where credit is due to those responsible for transforming the equipment and fighting ability of the Army. As in the past, I commend those responsible for the introduction of the Talisman project, including the Buffalo mine-clearing vehicle. I first raised the issue in the House exactly three years ago, so it is gratifying to know that minds in the MOD have been changed in the meantime on the usefulness and life-saving potential of the Buffalo.
	However, I was intrigued to read a report today by the director of equipment capability, who said:
	"The Talisman system is based around three vehicles"—
	the Mastiff, which we know about, the Buffalo, which I have mentioned, and the high-mobility engineer excavator, which I understand is to be built by JCB. However, what has happened to the Caterpillar DV104 armoured heavy wheeled tractors, 25 of which were procured at a cost of £14 million, but which are now being sold for less than £4.5 million? I believe that six of them were delivered as recently as 2001, and that they remain unused. I would have thought that those vehicles could be of some use to the Government in Afghanistan, for mine clearing, road building—you name it. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) mentioned that he would like to spend twice as much on defence—as, indeed, we all would—but we have to ask where the wastage is occurring, and whether that money would be better spent on the vehicles that our armed services now need.
	One of the areas in which the Ministry of Defence is most uncommitted at present is the category of medium-weight vehicles. I appreciate that they are part of the FRES package, which was mentioned by the Chairman of the Select Committee earlier, and I admit to having been critical in the past about the original concept. However, the Mastiff and Ridgeback design, which involves blast deflection rather than blast absorption, must be supplemented by more vehicles of that type. The Army needs a medium-weight vehicle that is ready to combat the difficulties that it could face from disorder in parts of the world as a result of the present worldwide financial and economic difficulties, and the terrorist threat that might follow in its wake.
	Another need crying out for urgent attention is the provision of helicopters. This has also been mentioned earlier in the debate. I appreciate that, with the recession and the need to reduce unemployment, it will be tempting for the Government to insist on a home-grown product. We should, however, never deny our forces the helicopter capability that they urgently need, and which can be purchased off the shelf, even second hand. There are helicopters available that already have a proven track record in theatre.
	The Royal Navy will have its two carriers, although whether there will be any aircraft to go on them is another matter. It will also have the Type 45 destroyers and the Astute submarines. The Royal Air Force has its Eurofighter and, in future, it will have the A400M airlift aircraft. But where is the ring-fenced finance for the key element of the future Army structure, which was based on the medium-weight vehicle?
	I mean no disrespect to the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, which are both excellent in the roles that they undertake, when I say that it is the Army that is at present bearing the brunt of operations in two theatres, one of which is particularly difficult. I trust, therefore, that the Minister and Her Majesty's Opposition will make an unequivocal commitment to see the future Army structure through, so that, at the very least, the Army has the ability to fulfil its present role, to respond whenever it is called upon to keep order and stability throughout the world, and to defend the best interests of the United Kingdom.
	In what we all recognise will be a tight military financial budget, the last thing that the nation would expect is for the Army proportionately to come near the bottom of the available funding league, while being expected to continue to carry the greatest burden. The British people know what sacrifices it has already made, and continues to make. They salute the courage and determination of our fighting forces, supported as they are by their families and friends, to whom we are also grateful.

Adam Holloway: I have been so impressed by the brevity of some of the speeches I have heard today that it has rendered me almost unable to speak. Members will be relieved to hear, therefore, that I am going to throw away the speech that I had prepared and just made a couple of points. We need to consider having some sort of defence policy, and I would have spoken about this at much greater length if my voice were not in this condition.
	Before we pat ourselves on the back too much about Iraq, let us remember that the biggest single consequence of the invasion of that country is that, in the minds of hundreds of millions of people in the middle east, a crazed extremist called Osama bin Laden asserted that the Muslim umma was under attack by western countries that wanted to cause problems in the middle east. To my mind, our invasion of that country was completely unnecessary and, for hundreds of millions of people, it has given his words resonance. That is going to be the most lasting consequence of our engagement in Iraq.
	We need also a defence policy that will stop us having another strategic failure after Iraq in Afghanistan. I went to Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) and there is a considerable amount of disillusion about the situation there. At the moment, we are certainly not winning—and I could put it another way if the House wanted me to. Furthermore, by focusing almost exclusively on the military effect, we are in danger of losing what has become known as the global war on terror. The consequences of all that are enormously seriously.
	I shall not bang on, but I should like to read what someone said in 1850 about Britain's engagement in the first Afghan war; it applies equally to the whole global war on terror. John Kaye said:
	"Throughout the entire period of British connection with Afghanistan a strange moral blindness clouded the vision of our statesmen: they saw only the natural, inevitable results of their own measures—and forgot that those measures were the dragon's teeth from which sprang-up armed men."

Angus Robertson: It is an honour to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway). I am only sorry that his voice was failing him, because he was making a powerful argument. I look forward to the next opportunity to hear what he has to say in greater detail.
	I am pleased to take part in the debate. Through the Minister of State, I want to give a warm welcome on behalf of the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru to his new colleagues in the Ministry of Defence team. I also want to put on the record a genuine and warm tribute to the Secretary of State's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Des Browne). Those who understand Scottish politics know that it is a pretty competitive field between my party and his, not least because we won his seat last year in the Scottish Parliament elections. However, I always had a straight and helpful information flow in my relationship with him, which is important bearing in mind that I represent the largest group of service personnel in Scotland, with both RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth in the Moray constituency, and that there is a strong Army tradition with the Highlanders and other regiments such as the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. For that reason, it is not a surprise that the largest constituency veterans day event in 2008 was in Moray.
	It is important to reflect on what the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), said about support for the troops. We should put it on the record, as the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) did, that support for our troops cuts across parties and our opinions on the operations on which they are sent. There are those of us who have passionately opposed the likes of the Iraq mission who will not avoid—nor would we ever seek to avoid—giving our unwavering support to our troops and the work that they do.
	The four substantial issues that I want to raise are Iraq, Afghanistan, matters relating to veterans' affairs and Trident. I had the good fortune last week to visit the Iraq mission in Basra and spent a lot of valuable time with the British armed forces there. I was briefed about their work. Having seen what I think is universally acknowledged to be a successful transitional operation involving UK military officers advising Iraqi opposite numbers in the 14th division, I am glad to be able to put it on the record that our armed forces are doing tremendous work. The more who know about it, the better. I am pleased to report back to those hon. Members who have not had the opportunity to go to Iraq and see the work of our armed forces that it is extremely effective. However, I left with one very big concern relating to civilian reconstruction.
	Many people are working extremely hard in the provincial reconstruction teams, not least the local team leader Keith MacKiggan, who, with officers from the Royal Navy and colleagues from the Netherlands and elsewhere, is helping the municipal authorities—which, sadly, are extremely corrupt and ineffective—to re-establish key services such as water and electricity supply, sewerage, and rubbish disposal. It concerned me that one of the most senior officers briefing us, who had served around the world, described the living conditions in large parts of Basra city, notably al-Hayyaniyah, as the worst that he had experienced anywhere at any time. It concerns me—notwithstanding my wish to see UK armed forces withdrawn from Iraq as quickly as possible—that part of the UK legacy will unfortunately be a continuation of that intolerable situation. I would welcome anything that the ministerial team can do to encourage their colleagues in the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office to ensure that those problems are overcome.
	One of the great advantages of such visits—in this case it was organised very ably by Captain Helen Falconer—was that we had the opportunity to speak to service personnel of all ranks from throughout the United Kingdom. As one would expect, as there are so many service personnel from Moray, I met a lot of them in Basra. The one message that I received consistently was that they are concerned about the time that it takes them to travel home on leave and that that time is effectively deducted from their overall leave period. Young men from Buckie and Orkney, serving with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and the Highlanders, explained that they were given 14 days' leave from intense service on the front, and that it took them three days to travel home and three to travel back, effectively halving their leave time. I do not consider that acceptable, and I hope that the Ministry of Defence will re-examine its rules pertaining to the calculation of travel time for our serving personnel.
	Let me now turn to the subject of Afghanistan, not least because of the biggest single loss of life among the UK armed forces there. I pay tribute to the 14 personnel who died aboard Nimrod XV230, which was based at RAF Kinloss, and to their families. I was pleased to receive the Secretary of State's assurances, in reply to an intervention from me at the beginning of the debate, about the serviceability of the Nimrod fleet as well as the maintaining of the safety focus, which is extremely important. I shall return to that later—I hope that the Minister of State shares my concern about some ongoing serviceability issues—but I first want to say something about the broader aspects of the Afghanistan mission.
	We need to look closely at our current position, as other countries are doing. I understand that the United States national intelligence estimate on Afghanistan, prepared by the United States' 16 intelligence agencies, is set to highlight what they describe as harsh conclusions to the current strategy. It seems to me that we have limited breathing space for a major rethink over the winter months, when fighting subsides and a new United States President reviews his options. It is our brave troops who are literally on the front lines as the situation deteriorates. The Taliban have regrouped, the heroin trade is flourishing, and we are backing a Government with significant corruption problems. Meanwhile, too many ordinary Afghans are seeing precious little reconstruction and development,
	It should be obvious to anyone with even a cursory understanding of Afghan history that this is a recipe for disaster. We need a major rethink now. Sadly, the United Kingdom misspent most of the opportunity that it had to make progress in Afghanistan by becoming embroiled in Iraq. The SNP and Plaid Cymru believe that the time has come to look at all the options before it is too late.
	My time is running down, but there are two wider points that I want to make that are important. Defence policy, from our perspective, is sadly still decided in this place, but many of the attendant support mechanisms and the charity sector dealing with military matters are devolved or self-standing. That is visible by those of us who have decided to wear Scottish poppies; some may not be aware that they are doing so. I am pleased that colleagues from England are supporting Poppyscotland here today.
	I am pleased also that one of the first acts of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), who is responsible for veterans in the UK Defence Ministry, was to travel to Edinburgh last week to meet Stewart Maxwell, the SNP Minister in the Scottish Government with responsibility for such matters. I am pleased that the UK Minister was able to learn about the tremendous progress that has been made in the past 18 months. For the first time in Scotland since devolution we have a Scottish Government who have set out a programme for assisting veterans across Scotland. There has been a whole series of improvements to the situation inherited from the Labour and Liberal Democrat Administration in Scotland who, sadly, did not have such a focused policy.
	My last point is about Trident. The Secretary of State was absolutely right to say that one of the universal principles that guide the policy perspectives of anyone in a democracy is that of standards of democracy and consent. I found it slightly jarring to contrast those comments with one of his first visits in post to Faslane, an excellent facility that will be a tremendous base for conventional naval forces in Scotland. The Secretary of State chose to travel to Faslane and to criticise those of us who do not want Scotland to be home to a system of weapons of mass destruction. It is not just the SNP that believes that; the Scottish Churches, the Scottish TUC, the majority of voters and the majority of Labour voters in Scotland believe it. I hope that the Secretary of State, who is not present now, takes the opportunity to reflect on the fact that when he talks about democratic consent he should apply that to public opinion in Scotland.
	We are debating defence matters in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday. It is important for all those servicemen and women who may be watching or reading what we discuss today that they understand that our support for them is not dependent on our support of Government policy or on the constitutional arrangements within the UK. The most important message to all our servicemen and women, and to all the charities that support them and their families, is that we salute them all.

Bernard Jenkin: We respect the Scottish National party's respect for our armed service men and women. We have rather less respect for its defence policy. I seem to recall that it wanted the economic policy of Iceland until fairly recently; perhaps they want a similar defence policy for Scotland. I do not think that the Scottish people, on reflection, would choose that.
	I dedicate my remarks to 2 Para, who are holding their service of remembrance for fallen comrades today in Colchester.
	The first issue we have to face is that the Government no longer have a defence policy. The writing was on the wall for years. The mismatch between commitments and resources has become progressively worse. The publication of the national security strategy in March marked a tipping point. It stated the Government's determination to
	"shift the overall balance of defence procurement towards support of current operations".
	That was an implicit admission that, after the 2008 three-year spending review, the MOD could no longer pretend to make ends meet. The Government can no longer maintain all the current commitments alongside the maintenance of the capabilities set out in the strategic defence review to keep the UK at the top table of military nations in the future. The Government's defence policy is collapsing. This follows the 10 years since the SDR, during which the armed forces have been increasingly underfunded, leaving an ever-widening gap which can be bridged only by continuing the run-down of manpower and extending the delays in orders for new equipment—with all the extra costs involved in that—and by the cancellation of training not directly relevant to the present counter-insurgency campaigns.
	The armed forces have just to keep making do, and they do so brilliantly, with the prowess, skill at arms, bravery and dignity that is their hallmark. However, they have been operating beyond the Ministry of Defence's defence planning assumptions for a period longer than the second world war. Such sustained overstretch means that, for example, half the new British Army officers deployed on operations have never done their live fire and manoeuvre exercise at the BATUS—British Army training unit Suffield—training area in Canada, which used to be a prerequisite. It also means that the term "pinch point trades", which used to apply to a few specialist jobs in the services where there was a shortage of trained people, is now applied to the infantry as a whole. In order to meet the Government's own targets for concurrency—that is, maintaining harmony guidelines—the number of infantry battalions would have to be increased by 10, from 39 to 49.
	Overstretch has been a deliberate Government policy; they have consciously run a foreign policy dependent upon the force of arms whose ambitions have outstripped the sustainable capability of the armed forces. Moreover, that looks set to continue. Whatever capacity is withdrawn from Iraq over the coming months looks likely to be almost immediately redeployed in Afghanistan as part of a US-led military surge. I do not necessarily oppose that policy, and I have no doubt that the armed forces can continue to deliver, but only in the short term, as the Chief of the Defence Staff himself has said. This sustained period of overstretch is having dire consequences, which we in Parliament, who are elected to be guardians of the long-term national interest and the welfare of those who would give their lives for us, should regard as completely unacceptable.
	The first consequence is military. I have been advised that the long-term attrition on people and equipment means that the MOD now privately estimates that even if it were to withdraw from all current operations immediately, the armed forces could not fully recuperate before at least 2017. That means that we are close to breaking the Army—a notion introduced to the debate on defence not by an Opposition MP, but by the Chief of the General Staff. The same applies in different ways to the other two services.
	The second consequence is the human reality of this military exhaustion. Why should men and women fight and risk their lives? They do so because they believe in what they are asked to fight for, and they believe that their country will look after them and those they love. I have looked into the faces of exhausted helicopter pilots, listened to soldiers back home who are haunted by their experiences, heard sailors who have cancelled their leave or their training and left their families to be with their ship on operations, and shared the grief with bereaved families. We must not take it for granted that the men and women of the armed forces will always be there when we need them. The steady flow of those leaving early is testimony to the strain on them, yet it has become an insidious part of the Government's defence policy consciously and cynically to exploit the extraordinary good will and resilience of these men and women. It cannot go on for much longer. I appreciate that the Government have begun to address questions around the military covenant, but we should keep reminding ourselves that this aspect of their exploitation of the good will of our servicemen and women is completely morally indefensible.
	There is a third consequence, which is yet more serious and profound. The national security strategy and the Secretary of State's hint to  The Sunday Times that a big programme would have to be cut both demonstrate that there is now a deliberate act to compromise our nation's long-term security as defined by the SDR, which set out all the essential things we need, simply for lack for funds. The terrible dilemma facing MOD officials and service chiefs is what to do. What should they cut to keep the show on the road in Afghanistan? Should it be the carriers and joint strike fighters, with their global power projection? If we are to have them, are they not simply crowding out other vital programmes? The Minister shakes his head, but he knows that that is the question that faces policy makers in his Department.
	What about cutting the Astute submarines, which are vital for the protection of an ocean-going navy? Could the Government possibly cut more surface ships, or Future Lynx, the new workhorse helicopter for all three services? Even if they cut 70 of the Future Lynx—no number is yet confirmed—the number of helicopters in the UK armed forces will be fewer than half the current figure by 2020.
	The difficulty is that coherent defence policy does not stand alone but must be part of the UK's overall foreign and security strategy. The current self-deceits, inconsistencies and financial constraints make it impossible to frame a rational long-term policy. We need a Prime Minister to decide what sort of country we realistically want to be, and what role we can realistically afford to play in the world.
	We are stretched across the middle east and central Asia with long-term commitments, like a colonial power, but with little public understanding of why we are there and paying so much in money and sacrifice. Are Iraq and Afghanistan to be the last gasp of the so-called ethical foreign policy? We need a defence review to resolve the painful dilemma that is being lived out by our armed servicemen and women, but before that the Government must forge a new foreign and security strategy to reflect a coherent view of the UK's role in the world—the world as it is, not as some would wish it to be.
	It is Labour's combination of over-ambition, naivety and lack of funding that has led us to this pass. We remember the extraordinary Chicago speech that the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, gave in the heat of the Kosovo crisis. He proclaimed that his actions were
	"guided by a subtle blend of mutual self interest and moral purpose".
	He added, casually, that
	"in the end, values and interest merge".
	I kid you not. How did anyone take such amateur philosophising seriously? How could any serious foreign policy practitioner distil any principle from such meaningless cant?
	That attempt to overlay our foreign policy with a spurious moral authority that it cannot possess has had disastrous results. We have tangled our military capabilities with legal complexities that result in terrorists being held prisoner in Basra in better conditions and safer accommodation than we have been able to provide for our own servicemen.  [ Interruption.] The Minister says that that is rubbish, but I saw it with my own eyes. The soldiers in Basra live in soft accommodation; the prisoners are in hardened accommodation.
	The result is the Royal Navy being instructed not to capture pirates off the horn of Africa for fear that they might claim asylum. The Government gave the Department for International Development a remit that set it up as though it were a state within the state, apparently answering to an altogether higher moral authority than the mere interests of the nation that pays its bills. Our armed forces, who have the responsibility for winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan, have to wade through swathes of bureaucracy to access a few million pounds for quick-impact projects, while DFID squanders billions on the corrupt Government in Kabul in pursuit of probably unattainable, and certainly less urgent, political objectives.
	Whatever we have to do in the short term we must do, but in the long term we need a new defence policy reflecting realism about the world and about what we can do, and based on the interests of the UK and the likely threats to the safety and welfare of our people over the next 20 or 30 years. We face a perfect storm of modern threats: non-state terrorism and insurgency, Muslim extremism, weapons proliferation, Iran, the rise of nationalism, Russia, the new threats arising from climate change, population growth and food and energy scarcity. All those are now set against the background of unprecedented global financial crisis, which will have economic and strategic consequences that are as yet hard to assess.
	Ditching the chaos of the ethical foreign policy is a pitch not for amorality but for moral realism. Of course we have obligations to the wider world, but we must surely recognise that our first duty as parliamentarians is to secure the safety and well-being of the fortunate people born, or who have come to live, in these free islands. That includes the need for a defence policy that preserves our safety, maintains our influence and honours our obligations to our servicemen and women and their families, and for which we must therefore be prepared to pay.

Richard Benyon: I shall seek to abide by that, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	It is excellent that the words "Help for Heroes" have been mentioned on a number of occasions in tonight's debate. A year into the life of that charity, of which it is an honour to be a trustee, I wish to pay tribute to those who started it up, particularly its inspirational chief executive, Bryn Parry, and to the wonderful army of volunteers, not just those in Wiltshire, who have kept the office going and who have fielded all the requests and the enormous sums that have arrived there from all around the country, but the fundraisers all around the country, who have worked so hard. It has been an inspiration to be involved.
	Interestingly, as has been said in the debate, people in Britain have now got it; they are able to divorce what they may or may not feel about the rights and wrongs of the operations in the world in which we are partaking from their complete and universal—almost universal—admiration and respect for our armed forces. When one talks to commanders, of whatever rank, who have returned from operations, what is clear is a universal pride in the performance and courage of those whom they have commanded. We must remember that this is the hoodie generation—the PlayStation kids—who are performing so well; they are performing as heroically as their grandparents and great-grandparents did in a more heroic age.
	In the few minutes available to me, I wish to raise a few points about our care for the wounded. When people are injured on operations, they receive first-class treatment on the battlefield. When they go to medical facilities such as Camp Bastion, they receive first-class treatment there too. They then come to Selly Oak, which is a world-class organisation. I am not one of those people who signs No. 10 website petitions asking for the restoration of military hospitals, because if I were still in the Army and I were wounded, I would want to go to Selly Oak. It is a centre of excellence where people have developed real skills in dealing with cranial injuries, gunshot wounds and all sorts of other requirements.
	People then go to Headley Court, another fantastic organisation, which will be further improved thanks to Help for Heroes and a big injection of cash from the Government. My point is that we hope that after going to such places, the personnel return to their unit. If they do not, and they cannot continue in the Army, they may have to go back to their community; we all represent those communities. There are people living in our towns and villages who may not outwardly have a visible disability, but who might have a disability inside their heads. We are only just starting to understand post-traumatic stress. We know that it can manifest itself again 14 years after an event, so there has to be a system in place to look after people if post-traumatic stress revisits them at any point.
	People with a disability who are trying to come to terms with life without a job and without the support of the military family are massively important. So, I am delighted that Help for Heroes has managed to support Combat Stress, Skill Force— another wonderful charity that gets servicemen into schools and other learning institutions, so that students can benefit from their presence and they can learn a new trade—and the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association. The help that has been given is enormously good.
	I also wish to discuss two people, whom I visited at Selly Oak some months ago: Rifleman Stephen Vause, who was in a coma, having been injured in Basra while serving with 4th Battalion, The Rifles; and Corporal Tony Burbidge. After I saw Stephen Vause in Birmingham, he went to the neurological centre at Putney, and he is now making fantastic progress at Headley Court. Having seen him more recently, when I noticed that he had progressed so much, and having spoken with his wonderful mother, Jessica Cheeseman, I realised that Stephen will require lifelong care and his mother and his wonderful family will require support for him for the rest of his days. We must consider such issues when we talk about the wounded.
	The other soldier I wish to speak about is Corporal Tony Burbidge, a career soldier, who was shot in the arm in Basra. I was not with him for long enough to make a full assessment, but he had regimental sergeant major written all over him—he was a real warrior, and the Army loses people like him at its peril. I do not know whether he has yet passed his fitness test to re-enter full service in the armed forces. There was much debate about that when I bicycled 350 miles with him for Help for Heroes. He said to me that he was struggling to reach the precise level of fitness required to return to full strength. I hope that the Army and the MOD can cut such people a bit of slack. I wrote to his commanding officer, Rupert Jones, and was heartened by his reply—like all good regiments, the Rifles will look after its own. I hope that MOD will recognise that if such people cannot make the precise fitness grade, we will lose a real asset and there will be many more Corporal Burbidges to look after.
	I would have liked to use the second part of my speech to talk about a much more contentious issue—the appalling Government decision to axe the Defence Export Services Organisation—and about why it is so damaging at a time when we must build up our balance of payments and support our manufacturing industry. However, I recognise that there is not enough time, so I shall wait for the Queen's Speech debate to make that contribution.

Douglas Carswell: Robert Kagan writes of how the world is returning to normal. The author of "The Return of History and the End of Dreams" writes of how many of the post-cold war strategic assumptions are coming to an end. In place of a world dominated by an all-powerful American hegemony, the world is becoming more multi-polar. Kagan writes of how new regional powers are emerging and have begun to jockey for advantage: China, India, Iran and Russia. He suggests that the democracies of the world—Britain, America and others—face a new challenge from resurgent autocracies.
	There is also the threat of radical Islamism. On 11 September 2001, the strategic environment was changed profoundly. It seems that the world is in rapid flux, yet those who make public policy move more slowly. Danger does not necessarily come from the resumption of age-old great power struggles, but from our unpreparedness for them. Too much of our defence policy remains based on residual assumptions that no longer necessarily hold. Policy is too often the product of ad hoc decision making. What is supposed to be strategic calculation is little more than policy formed in response to tactical necessity. We are ill-prepared and weak when it comes to the challenges that lie ahead. Already, our armed forces are seriously overstretched. We have asked them to do too much, on too little, for too long.
	For many people, the answer is simple: spend more money—an extra £10 billion here, an extra £10 billion there. However, after a decade of the Government hosing additional money at health and education, we know that more money alone does not always achieve the improvements expected; so it is, I fear, with defence. Any additional expenditure on defence needs to be accompanied by reform. Hosing more money at defence alone will not improve our armed forces. Before spending more money, we need to end the years of indecision and strategic drift. Above all, we need to end the racket that is contemporary defence procurement policy.
	Our defence policy should be informed by an assessment of our foreign policy objectives, by careful, cool-headed, level-headed consideration of our national interest, and by an assessment of various strategic assumptions. That is what should determine how we prepare our armed forces. Foreign policy calculations should shape our defence strategic guidance, and our defence priorities should then be determined by what is in the defence strategic guidance. It is simply bogus to pretend that that is what happens today. Anyone who thinks that it is does not really know what is happening in the Ministry of Defence. For example, where in the current draft of the defence strategic guidance are there planning assumptions or scenarios that call for two new carriers?
	Labour came to power promising to overhaul defence procurement, yet according to the best-selling author Lewis Page, its defence industrial strategy amounts to business as usual. The defence industrial strategy is more about industry than defence. It does more to safeguard the interests of selected contractors than the interests of the armed forces. The DIS is good at putting large amounts of public money on to the balance sheets of a few contractors, but that is about all it is good for. The DIS talks about best value for money, and improving delivery and costs, but all the evidence shows that the DIS promises things that are almost by definition mutually exclusive. We cannot both shore up our defence industrial base and provide our armed forces with the best value kit in the world; it is a logical impossibility.
	The DIS is, in reality, a corporatist, protectionist racket. Lobbyists for the DIS on the political left justify it as a means of preserving jobs. The same arguments once trotted out to justify Government subsidy of British Leyland are used to legitimise squandering our defence budget. To those on the political right, the fig leaf justification is about something called sovereignty of supply. The same arguments were once trotted out to justify the corn laws.
	Defence procurement is run in the interests of the big contractors, not our armed forces. Billions are spent on what it suits the likes of BAE Systems, VT and others to supply. The taxpayer pays a high price for protectionist procurement; the soldier pays a blood price. I shall give one example. In Afghanistan, helicopters allow our troops to cover distances quickly and give us tactical flexibility, yet there are not enough of them. Why? Protectionist procurement. In a letter to me, dated 31 July last year, Lord Drayson admitted that the MOD had not run a competitive tender process to replace the Lynx. It was, he wrote,
	"the judgement of the department that a competition...would cause delay".
	Thus the alternatives were never fully considered.
	A £1 billion contract to build helicopters was awarded for a helicopter that cost almost 50 per cent. more than the alternatives, and which would not be ready until at least 2012. That is a long time to wait if one is on a minefield in southern Afghanistan. Sir Kevin Tebbit, who was the permanent under-secretary at the MOD when the decision to exclude rival bids was made, did not have to wait anything like that time before he joined the board of the company that got the contract. Our armed forces in Afghanistan pay a blood price for the shortage of helicopters. The price of protectionist procurement is paid in English blood in Helmand.
	It is ironic that the helicopter that eventually lifted Corporal Mark Wright and his comrades off the minefield in Helmand was apparently an American Sikorsky—precisely the kind of alternative never considered by the MOD. Those who think that procurement policy should be about protecting jobs should perhaps remember that. Sikorsky tells me that it wrote to the MOD, offering to supply some 20-plus lift helicopters within months. It tells me that it took Sir Kevin's former Department longer to respond to the offer than it would have taken the firm to fulfil it.
	Protectionist procurement weakens us. The idea that it can somehow strengthen our standing in the world to purchase military equipment from only a handful of supposedly UK suppliers is nonsense. We need off-the-shelf defence procurement. In any market where there is a constraint on supply, the seller sets the terms of trade; so it is in defence. The DIS restricts supply to a few privileged contractors. No through-life approach can stop the taxpayer being ripped off, or the armed forces being denied the kit that they need to have on time, every time.
	We need to consider making off-the-shelf procurement the default setting for our defence procurement policy. BAE Systems and VT might not like it, but it would ensure that our armed forces had the kit they need to do the tasks that we set them. It would help us to meet the challenges that Robert Kagan writes about in his book. We need off-the-shelf, multilateral procurement, working in collaboration with our democratic allies.

Gerald Howarth: I first join other hon. Members in welcoming the new Secretary of State to his post. Like me, he not only has responsibility for defence matters in this place but has a large BAE Systems facility in his constituency. I, for one, make no apology for that, and I am sure that he will not either, but he will need to judge matters carefully when he comes to make his decisions.
	I welcome back to the House my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison), who was unable to attend our previous debate because he was serving abroad with the Royal Navy in his capacity as a reserve officer. It is good that this House has hon. Members who are able to continue to serve their country in the way that he does.
	We have had another well-informed debate—so much so that it will of course receive no attention from our friends in the media. Frankly, we might as well operate under Chatham House rules for all that it matters to them. I was most impressed by many of my hon. Friends' contributions. It is a pity that at one point we were down to just one Labour Back Bencher. Many Labour Members participate in the armed forces parliamentary scheme, take an interest in defence and have defence interests in their constituencies, and I suggest to the Minister of State that he might try to encourage more of them to join in these debates.
	We heard excellent speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway) and for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood), who have been in theatre recently. My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), the shadow Secretary of State, has been delighted to receive so many plaudits for what was clearly an excellent speech. We were pleased to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman), who is a newcomer to our debates. We look forward to hearing from him again. He made some extremely important points, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East, about the importance of winning hearts and minds. All that I can do is to refer my hon. Friends to the excellent speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury made yesterday in Westminster Hall. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East referred to a reconstruction and stabilisation force, and rightly paid tribute to the role of the Royal Engineers as combat engineers. I have Gibraltar barracks in my constituency, and I am acutely aware of the important part that they are playing on the front line.
	In the debate earlier this month, I pointed to the new geopolitical situation, particularly to the new assertiveness on the part of Russia following its spectacularly successful invasion of Georgia, its claim to large swathes of the Arctic, and the rebuilding of its military capability. Earlier this week, several of us met former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, whose assessment that Russia is returning to the more authoritarian style of the Government of the old Soviet Union confirmed my growing fears.
	However, it is not just a resurgent and assertive Russia that we need to note. At the risk of being accused by the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) of waxing lyrical on the plethora of alternative threats, I would like to refer to some of those already mentioned by other hon. Members. As Rear Admiral Chris Parry—who until recently was development, concepts and doctrine centre director at the Ministry of Defence—observed at the Jane's-Cityforum conference this week, the projected population growth from 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion by 2050 will intensify competition for resources, climate change may intensify migration, and ideological pressures are increasing. Some of those aspects were acknowledged by the Secretary of State. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell)—I agreed with him on this point—rightly said that we are in a state of flux.
	Many hon. Members have referred to the immediate imperative to secure the best possible outcome in Afghanistan in the shortest possible time and, as my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State said, to establish clear benchmarks. However, there is a danger of becoming overly focused on that narrow objective. I well understand that today's commanders feel the need to optimise for the most likely scenario, but to abandon the ability to engage in large-scale manoeuvre operations would render the security of the United Kingdom vulnerable. When General Dannatt said last year that our capacity to meet the unexpected was "almost non-existent", that should have been a wake-up call. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton), I welcome the investment in the new range of armoured vehicles for Afghanistan for which I and others called three years ago, although we await the details of which major programmes will be slashed in order to pay for this £700 million commitment.
	I fear that we are at risk of losing key military capabilities, either because there is no time to train or because we lack the necessary equipment. We should be under no illusions. The regeneration of a lost capability will not be remedied overnight, so we need to prepare, which is what defence of the realm is all about. I shall give one example: anti-submarine warfare. With the contracting fleet of Nimrod aircraft available and the heavy commitment to surveillance in Afghanistan and Iraq, is the Minister satisfied that we have the requisite capability to respond to a threat that could be posed by Iran, for example, or by Russia's Akula II submarines, which I am told are extremely quiet and carry cruise missiles? As my constituent Richard Gardner, the editor of  Aerospace International magazine, put it in this month's edition:
	"Even if the long delayed Nimrod MRA4 programme survives, the very small size of the fleet (perhaps now only 9 down from 21) will clearly be inadequate to provide more than a token maritime reconnaissance capability—just as submarine building resumes in Russia and many other countries."
	Against the highly uncertain background to which many have referred in the two debates we have had this month, it is truly astonishing how this Government have slashed our military capabilities. I shall give some examples: infantry battalions have been cut by 50 per cent. from 107 in 1997 to 50 today; combat aircraft have been cut by 44 per cent. from 339 to 189; support helicopters have been cut by 33 per cent. from 77 to 52; and as we all know, destroyers and frigates have been cut by 30 per cent. from 35 to 25. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) intimated, rumours abound about the prospects for further reductions in the equipment programme. For the certainty of the House and British industry, it is time that the Government made clear where the equipment examination is going and when they are going to report to the House about it. The hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) made the point that there is a lack of modern equipment to train on, and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway) rightly provoked the Secretary of State into committing to provide full cover for the carriers, and we will hold him to that.
	On the issue of equipment, I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State say that he will give maximum support to the export opportunities that arise from Britain's defence industrial base. It is a pity he was not Secretary of State a year ago when the Defence Export Services Organisation was scrapped, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon) rightly pointed out. That was an absolute disgrace. My hon. Friend pointed out that morale is low, and that some UK Trade and Investment staff have apparently refused to co-operate with Defence and Security Organisation staff on moral grounds; we need to be told whether that is true or not.  [I nterruption. ] The Minister says that that is rubbish, but the issue is very important.
	As far as the defence industrial strategy is concerned, I am afraid to say that I fundamentally disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich. He is entitled to his view, but I have to put on the record that some of the things that he said about buying off the shelf are not the policy of the Conservative party. The policy of our party is to ensure that we have sovereign capability over key equipment, such as the joint strike fighter, and his suggestion that the whole procurement programme is a corporatist, protectionist racket is very wide of the mark.
	Moreover, for the benefit of those in Yeovil, to whom I spoke when I visited Westland 10 days ago, we feel that the Future Lynx is the only game in town. I hope that the Secretary of State will make decision on that quickly.

Bob Ainsworth: My hon. Friend is right. There is misinformation and, on the odd occasion, mischief. It does not help us to develop an understanding and to convince people that our operations in Afghanistan are in our vital national interests and that we need to proceed with them.
	A number of hon. Members mentioned helicopters. The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) accused us of having a chronic under-availability in air capacity. I hope he recognises that there has been a 60 per cent. increase in the number of helicopters in the Afghan theatre. The main increase has been in the number of Sea Kings, which are now fitted with the new rotor blades that enable them to operate. Eight additional Chinooks are being modified, and we have bought an additional six Merlins. If we get the transition in Iraq that we are all hoping to see in the near future, it will potentially make the Merlin fleet available for use in the Afghan theatre.
	The hon. Gentleman asked what we are trying to achieve on piracy and about additional capacity. Our motives for getting involved in the European operation are to increase the capacity that is available to deal with the pirate problem off the east coast of Africa and to capture the political will of our allies. We are going to be able to ensure that there is no conflict with the operations of combined task force 150. By providing the command structure ourselves from Northwood, which we have offered to do, and having provided a contribution towards the European security and defence policy operation on piracy, we should be able to ensure that the operations are complementary. It gives us a lot more capacity for dealing with piracy than we would otherwise have. HMS Northumberland is on station, armed with beefed-up rules of engagement and able to take on the pirates, and to confiscate and destroy their equipment.
	Issues to do with decompression were raised. The hon. Gentleman made us aware of some grades in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who have decompression capabilities available to them. I do not know what decompression is available to Members of Parliament when they leave theatre, either. Our people have a six-month tour of operation. They get rest and recuperation. We have introduced decompression for very good reasons. I hope that we can keep that up, develop the thinking behind it and ensure that we use that decompression methodology to minimise the stress on our personnel coming back from theatre.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock raised an important issue at this time of year: parcels and post for theatre. We have tried to discourage people from getting involved in the generous acts that they want to participate in because of the consequences that inevitably flow from them. Our people in theatre want to receive parcels and messages from their loved ones at Christmas. We have got the free post facility for them. If the system is swamped by unnamed packages, it inevitably delays what is most precious to the people who are spending Christmas in theatre.
	We are trying to develop other schemes and methods whereby people can show their appreciation. There are voucher schemes and the uk4u charity. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), is looking at how else we can enable people to show their appreciation to the troops at Christmas time without creating the unforeseen circumstance that unsolicited mail creates of blocking that which is most precious to our people—messages and parcels from their loved ones.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) raised the issue of Devonport, inevitably and yet again. We are committed to the sustainability of the royal naval base at Devonport. We know that submarine work alone will not provide that. We need other depth work to smooth the workload there. We are committed to delivering that. On top of that, flag officer sea training and the amphibious expertise will be based, kept and maintained at Devonport.
	 It being Six o'clock, the  motion  lapsed, without Question put.

Paul Beresford: I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise this issue again. I am also delighted to see the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan), here—probably more delighted than he is to be here, or indeed to see me here. This is a continuation of a very broad debate that began in Westminster Hall about a week ago, which raised many concerns and questions. Because we were desperately short of answers to those questions then, I shall leave the Minister plenty of time to answer them now. He nods; I am sure that he will fulfil my every wish.
	The Mole Valley constituency borders London. It contains large areas of green belt, which are London's lungs. It consists of almost all the Mole Valley district council area, and five eastern wards of Guildford council. It also contains very large areas of outstanding natural beauty, special protection areas, special areas of conservation, commons and farmland. It contains two small towns and perhaps 32 separate villages—at least, they are separate at the moment—and there is a deep desire in the area to retain them as separate communities. That is recognised in the draft plan, even if it is contradicted by other parts of it. If we ignore genuine gardens, including back gardens, there are very few genuine brownfield sites to be included in the plan for growth.
	I accept that more homes are needed. I became very aware of that when as a Minister, back in 1997, I saw and understood the house projection figures. Mole Valley and, indeed, Surrey as a whole generate their own increases: children leave home and look for somewhere to live, grandparents are much more independent than they used to be, and the divorce rate is fairly high, which means two homes rather than one. There has been immigration into the area from elsewhere in the United Kingdom and from abroad, as people have come to the area looking for work.
	Over the years, both Mole Valley district council and Guildford borough council have enabled considerable growth to take place. In fact, I believe that both councils are more than meeting their current housing requirements. Almost all those gains have been what we call windfalls: building in back gardens, the demolition of a single house and the building of two or three houses in its place, or the demolition of several neighbouring houses and the building of a small group of new houses—or, in some cases, relatively low-rise blocks of flats.
	In our part of Surrey, green-belt areas, areas of outstanding natural beauty, commons and the like are considered sacrosanct, and any suggestion of encroachment prompts an almighty and united protest—the sort of outcry, as I told the Minister in the Westminster Hall debate, that there would be in his constituency in the event of proposals to build on Tooting Bec or Tooting Graveney common, Garrett Green or Tooting Gardens. I probably know those sites as well as the Minister does, and I am sure that he would be manning the barricades hand in hand with his very popular local authority to defend them if there were any proposals to build anything at all on them. We will see the same effect in Mole Valley if a threat is posed to any of those green-belt and other special pieces of land, but it is there in the plan.
	There was deep concern about the initial figures in the South East England Regional Assembly's draft plan, but there is now absolute horror at the increase proposed by the Government inspector, and at a number of other changes apart from those straight numbers. For example, the figures are now not a target but a floor. There is an implied acceptance that some of the green belt must go, along with a refusal to accept the windfall growth that I mentioned earlier.
	As I have said, the growth of recent years has resulted from developers� purchasing large single properties, or making an amalgam of small purchases, in order to demolish them and build additional properties. A sensible prediction of windfall growth can be made, and should be allowed to be built into the response from local authorities. No large disused industrial sites, or even moderately sized brownfield sites, are easily available. If windfalls cannot be included, and if the targetsor floorsremain, precious green-belt land will have to be lost and settlements or villages will have to be amalgamated, although that is contrary to the plan.
	The Minister for Housing, the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett), on Monday accepted in the Select Committee that the windfall houses should be taken into account. She said that they are
	housing additions from whatever source they come.
	On a more basic point, many feel that the population growth prediction is highly questionable. For example, there seems to be no account taken of outward migration. Further, there is a respectable theory that constantly to supply in an attempt to meet demand simply encourages increased demand.
	I am deeply concerned that there appears to be little or no effort to use the planning system and other systems within the Department to encourage job growth in slow employment areas. The provision of jobs in northern deprived areas would help to reduce immigration and housing demands in the south-east. Recently, huge funds for RDAs, which could have been used in that area, have been moved forward to this financial year for housing budgets: 25 million from next year and 275 million from 2011-12. These funds could have been used to ease the pain in the south-east and the north. It is obvious that more houses mean more people, and more people mean more demands on the roads, greater demands on the health services and huge and increasing demands on education and police.
	Some years ago, when the former Deputy Prime Minister made one of his rare visits to his own Department's Select Committee, the infrastructure issue in the south-east was raised, specifically in relation to the anticipated south-east housing numbers. The right hon. Gentleman agreed that housing development and improved infrastructure should move hand in hand.
	Secondary schools in Mole Valley are overflowing and children are being bussed miles to get an education. The county has no school capital funds and road improvement plans have been shelved because there is no money. Hospitals, rather than being improved and enlarged, have been threatened. There are three serving my constituency and we have had to fight to save them. Two have been saved, but there is still a big question mark over one.
	My requests to the Minister tonighthe can take these away to the Minister for Housingare as follows: first, to rethink and reduce the figures to below those of the original SEERA draft, at the very least; secondly, to allow windfalls to be taken into consideration; thirdly, to ensure that the green belt, areas of outstanding national beauty, special protection areas and special areas of conservation and commons in the south-east remain sacrosanct; and fourthly; that finance for Surrey's education, transport and hospitals be allowed to grow to meet even those new reduced housing targets.
	The Minister for Housing appeared to show some understanding of the issue at the Select Committee, and I would be grateful if the Under-Secretary took this message to her. I left an area of New Zealand that was spectacularthe Lord of the Rings area. The Minister may have seen the films. It gives me enormous pleasure to take New Zealanders from that area, who are so proud of their scenery, to the Surrey hills. They, equally, are stunned by what they see. Those hills must not be concreted over.

Sadiq Khan: The hon. Gentleman is in danger of being the first Member of Parliament ever to encourage businesses to move away from his constituency, with all the implications that that would have. I take his point and he will appreciate that we can encourage businesses to go to certain areas of the country, but we are not in favour of being prescriptive about that.
	Some 13,000 responses to the consultation are now being logged and they will be carefully considered, with any necessary changes made to the plan before it is finally published next year. The Government recognise that there are no easy solutions and at the same time accept that there is no real alternative. Everyone thinks that their area is special, but no area can shirk the challenges it faces. While the current global economic conditions are a great concern, they will not last, but the legacy of the 20-year south east plan must be a lasting and positive one. Therefore, all of usthe Government, the regional assembly, the local authorities, local MPs and othersmust take responsibility for delivering the development needed to create and maintain sustainable communities in the south-east, and we must all take responsibility also for ensuring that the south east plan plays its part in that task.
	Once again, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on raising this issue. He has passionately articulated the concerns of his constituents, and I hope that he will accept that we have listened.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes past Six o'clock.